| RFP Questions
Metro 4/SESARM Emissions Inventory Project
Questions and Answers
Pursuant to the November 21, 2008 RFP
Question 1: 11/25/08 – Are there any conflict of interest complications in having served previously as a Metro 4/SESARM contractor?
Answer 1: Current contractors are not subject to a conflict of interest disqualification provided that they have not assisted with developing of this emissions inventory RFP, have not helped design potential tasks that are incorporated in the RFP, and are not privy to non-public information that would give them a competition advantage.
Question 2: 11/25/08 – At the end of Section V.B., the RFP states, “The emissions inventory technical advisor may not be a member of the emissions inventory development team or the emissions and air quality modeling team, nor be a member of the same firm as the emissions inventory development team nor the emissions and air quality modeling team.” Does this disqualify a current advisor from bidding, or joining a team that is preparing a bid?
Answer 2: No. Current advisors who have not participated in discussions nor provided input to project design nor RFP development may bid, or be a collaborating partner in a bid. Once contracts are awarded to inventory and modeling teams, those individuals, and their companies, if applicable, will be precluded from serving as a future technical advisor. Metro 4 and SESARM agencies prefer that the future technical advisor be completely independent of the inventory and modeling teams.
Question 3: 12/5/08 – The RFP indicates SESARM may award different components of this job to different contractors. Is it acceptable for a contractor to propose to address one or multiple tasks in the RFP, but not necessarily all of them?
Answer 3: Yes. Submitting a bid for only one task is allowable. SESARM reserves the right to segregate and/or group tasks into one or multiple contracts as deemed necessary to address project needs in the most acceptable manner.
Question 4: 12/5/08 – Can we obtain a copy of the work plan issued for the creation of the VISTAS 2002 emission inventory?
Answer 4: The original work plans for emission inventory contracts were amended on multiple occasions. It would be difficult to produce a comprehensive work plan in short order. The nature of the work plan and project expectations can be seen in posted work products noted below. If this information is not deemed sufficient, inquirers may wish to submit more specific questions which SESARM will try to answer in a helpful manner.
Question 5: 12/5/08 – Can you provide access to reports produced for the 2002 regional haze emission inventory project?
- “Draft Report – Development of Version 2 of the Draft 2002 VISTAS Emission Inventory for Regional Haze Modeling – Point Sources," prepared by MACTEC in February 2004
- “Draft Report – Development of Version 2 if the Draft 2002 VISTAS Emission Inventory for Regional Haze Modeling – Area Source Methodology,” prepared by MACTEC in Feb. 2004
- “Development of the VISTAS Draft 2002 Mobile Source Emission Inventory (February
2004 Version),” prepared by E.H. Pechan & Assoc. in Feb. 2004
Answer 5: Yes. Go to VISTAS Final Work Products page to access the hotlinks to the reports, or use the links below if they are workable.
Question 6: 12/5/08 – The RFP indicates that the inventory prepared will be for both annual and daily emissions, but indicates that the temporal factors will be supplied by the modeling contractor. Please confirm that BOTH annual and daily emissions are to be prepared under this contract.
Answer 6: The question is valid as the RFP is not clear. The emissions inventory contractor is to prepare annual emissions only. The emissions modeling contractor will prepare temporal allocation of annual emissions. For EPA reporting requirements and SIP submittal requirements, the states will need both annual emissions for contributions to PM2.5 and regional haze and summer daily emissions for ozone precursors. The emissions inventory contractor would need to work with the emissions modeling contractor to assure that the states have complete summaries of both annual and daily emissions. The emissions inventory contractor would not need to generate daily emissions.
Question 7: 12/5/08 – The spreadsheet for preparing costs and the technical write-up indicates that costs should be provided at the sub-task level (e.g., base year inventory, fire, digitize paper fire records). Please confirm that costs should be prepared at this level of detail.
Answer 7: The costs spreadsheet and technical write-up clearly request separate costs for sub-tasks of the fire inventory development task. On Page 14 the RFP, it clearly states that SESARM reserves the right to award some but not all of the sub-tasks of the fire inventory development. SESARM needs costs provided at the sub-task level to determine which sub-tasks will be funded and costs for those specific sub-tasks.
Question 8: 12/5/08 – The cost spreadsheet indicates a column for investigators and their rates and hours. Should ONLY investigators’ rates and hours be included or should all staff be included along with their rates?
Answer 8: The bidder should provide costs for all staff members that will be participating and charging to a task. The term “investigator” was intended to be broadly applicable all different staff functions but the bidder is welcome to supply appropriate job titles for staff.
Question 9: 12/5/08 – The cost spreadsheet indicates Tasks 1, 2, 3 and 7 (Data Display and Archive). It appears that D. Task 4 (Special Emissions Inventory Development Project), E. Task 5 (Alternative Control Strategy Emissions Inventories), and F. Task 6 (Alternative Projection Year Emissions Inventories) are missing. All of these are marked as contingency. Should costs for the contingency tasks be prepared? Should an approach for each contingency task be provided in the technical proposal?
Answer 9: Both the cost spreadsheet and the text are consistent that costs are not requested for Task 4 (Special Emissions Inventory Development Project) and Task 6 (Alternative Projection Year Emissions Inventories). Task 5 (Control Strategies) is not included in the cost spreadsheet and costs are not required for it. The text for Task 5 does indicate that bidders should provide costs for hypothetical control strategies but that may not be a productive exercise for bidders and can be disregarded. SESARM cannot define the specific scope of work for these three tasks at this time. At the point that work is to be performed for these tasks, SESARM will provide specific work objectives and the contractor will be requested to provide a specific statement of work and costs at that time.
Question 10: 12/5/08 – MOVES and MOBILE6 input file development approaches would be significantly different. Will the contractor have to develop MOBILE6 and MOVES formats for this work effort?
Answer 10: The cost spreadsheet asks that the bidder provide costs to develop mobile model inputs. It does not request costs to run MOVES. At this time, states do not know when EPA will require that mobile emissions be developed using the yet-to-be-released MOVES model rather than the currently used MOBILE model. Previously, the SESARM emissions modeling contractor ran MOBILE to generate air quality model inputs and provided the MOBILE outputs to the emissions inventory contractor to include in inventory summaries. SESARM intends to follow this same approach until EPA requires MOVES to be used to generate emissions reports. Because we do not know when EPA will require MOVES, we did not request bidders to provide costs for running MOVES. If EPA requires MOVES in the future, the contractor will be requested to provide a proposed approach and costs for such work at that time.
Question 11: 12/5/08 – The RFP seems to imply that for agricultural ammonia, the contractor will recommend an approach but that the recommended approach will be determined after the recommendation is made. How should costs for this task be prepared since the recommended approach will not be known until after proposal submittal?
Answer 11: In 2009, the eastern states will be evaluating options for process-based modeling of agricultural ammonia emissions. The SESARM states are likely to cooperate in the eastern states inventory initiative. Bidders may provide any insights or recommendations for developing a base year or future year inventory for agricultural ammonia inventory for the SESARM states, but bidders are not asked to supply a cost proposal for this work. Once the SESARM states have defined the approach for developing agricultural ammonia emissions, the successful respondent to this request for proposals will be asked to provide costs for a specific scope of work.
Question 12: 12/9/08 – Page 6 – In the last paragraph on the page, NOx is not included in the list of pollutants. Should it be added?
Answer 12: Yes. NOx is a key pollutant that should be included in all emissions inventory deliverables.
Question 13: 12/9/08 – Page 11 – The second sentence under Task 2 describes a 2005 inventory. Is this the 2005 EPA NEI, or a separate SESARM-developed emission inventory?
Answer 13: The contractor will be asked to assemble the 2005 and/or 2008 inventory data supplied by the SESARM states. In some, but not all cases, SESARM will direct the contractor to also obtain the 2005 NEI inventory data available from EPA. The contractor will be expected to respond to SESARM direction on which EPA data sets to use in place of state data.
Question 14: 12/9/08 – Page 12 – The third sentence in Section 2 “Area Source Emissions Inventories” states that “The contractor shall also obtain EPA’s 2005 inventory files…” Please clarify the EPA area source 2005 files to which you are referring. Are these the individual state inventory CERR submittal files on EPA’s website (which have not been compiled into a 2005 NEI)?
Answer 14: States will provide CERR submittal data to the project. SESARM, in partnership with its member agencies, will direct the contractor to other EPA inventory data as needed. The bidder may also recommend additional data sets that should be considered.
Question 15: 12/9/08 – Page 13 – Fire Emissions Inventories – Are electronic records for wild fires for the SESARM states maintained in a consistent format, or do the format and content of these records vary from state to state?
Answer 15: Format and content of fire activity data vary from state to state. The bidder should estimate the level of effort to fill missing data, standardize data format, and define assumptions used to provide the estimate so that costs may be scaled as more precise information on data sets becomes available.
Question 16: 12/9/08 – Page 13 – Fire Emissions Inventories – Has a decision already been made to use FETS/CONSUME for fire emissions estimates, or is SESARM open to evaluating other options?
Answer 16: The RFP states that “SESARM intends to archive past and future fire activity data within the Fire Emissions Tracking System (FETS) that has been developed by the Western Regional Air Partnership as a national data archive for fire activity and emissions data for regional air quality modeling.” The Fire Activity and Emissions Tracking System Work Group has recommended that the existing FETS system be used to further the goal of a national fire data archive. SESARM is seeking bids for technical support to prepare the SESARM fire activity data for entry in FETS. Bidders may propose alternatives as long as options include a mechanism to include SESARM data in a national data archive compatible with, and obtainable through, the FETS website. CONSUME is one component of the Blue Sky framework of fire emissions calculation. Bidders could recommend alternatives to CONSUME as long as they are compatible with the Blue Sky framework. Bidders would need to justify why the alternative is better than using FETS and CONSUME.
Question 17: 12/9/08 – Page 19 – Under Task 3, the second sentence states that “The contractor shall assemble … the SESARM fine particle/ozone 2012 initial inventory…” Can SESARM provide documentation on how this inventory was developed to assist bidders in understanding the methods used for this inventory?
Answer 17: The future year inventory developed in Task 3 will be grown from the new base year developed in Task 2. The 2012 initial inventory that was developed in 2008 and grown from the 2002 base year is mentioned in the RFP for completeness but is not critical to the new work. The growth factors that were used for the 2012 initial inventory are consistent with growth factors for the SESARM states that were used for 2009 and 2018 inventories. The 2009 and 2018 methods and results are posted on the VISTAS website. The 2012 documentation has been developed but has not yet been posted.
Question 18: 12/9/08 – Page 20 – EGU Point Source Projection Year Inventories – Is the contractor expected to provide technical approaches and cost estimates for using the proprietary IPM model to estimate future year EGU emissions for the SESARM states under this contract?
Answer 18: The RFP states that “in 2009 alternative projections methods for future EGU growth and controls will be evaluated.” States have not yet determined whether IPM or another proprietary model will be used. The SESARM states, working with the other eastern states, will make this decision after the emissions inventory contractor is selected. Bidders may recommend options for EGU future year projections but the final decision will be based on the state collaborative effort. IPM is a proprietary model and if IPM were to be selected, then a bid would be requested from the owner of the proprietary model. Bidders on this RFP are not expected to include costs to run IPM or another model in their bid. Bidders are expected to process growth and control data provided to the bidder to develop the emissions inventory. Bidders should state their assumptions and costs. Once SESARM has more precise information on a desired approach, the contractor will be provided a detailed scope of work and requested to provide detailed costs.
Question 19: 12/9/08 – Page 20 – Clarify the intent of the second sentence under 3. Area Source Projection Year Emissions Inventories (Non-Fire).
Answer 19: For area source projection year emissions inventories, the intent is to give the bidder an opportunity (not a requirement) to demonstrate insight into methods for area source projections. Since SESARM is not providing detailed growth and control information in the RFP, the bidder is not required to provide detailed alternative methods.
Question 20: 12/9/08 – Page 25 – The requirements for the technical proposal limit the entire Technical Proposal to no more than 20 pages. Is this requirement the same regardless of whether the response covers all tasks or just a singe task? Due to the large number of tasks and subtasks and the need to address each of them, teams that are responding to the entire proposal could be put at a disadvantage since their approach for each task will need to be very limited in comparison to a team bidding on only a small number of tasks.
Answer 20: The objective of limiting the bidders’ response to 20 pages is to reduce the level of effort for both bidders and reviewers. We would prefer to review 20 pages or less but recognize the valid point made. SESARM will not disqualify responses that are longer than 20 pages. If bidders need more than 20 pages to describe their proposed approach, they should use the minimum number of additional pages to concisely convey their approach. Resumes and past work history are to be covered in appendices, not within the main body of the proposal.
Question 21: 12/9/08 – Page 28 – Under Evaluation Criteria #3, the RFP indicates that salary rates for this contract will be capped at the “maximum daily rate of a GS-18 federal employee.” Can you indicate what this rate is?
Answer 21: SESARM included this condition pursuant to its funding conditions. However, the exact applicability of 40 CFR 30.27(b) and the cost components included in/excluded from this federal rate are still being examined. SESARM does not have the current rate. Many contractors have rate structures that have been certified and approved for use for federal work. Work under this RFP will be subject to the same restrictions as other federal work. Respondents are encouraged to offer competitive rates that are approvable by EPA. SESARM will post additional rate information if clarifications are provided by EPA.
Question 22: 12/9/08 – Page 31 – Item G states “The contractor is to prepare/present on procedures/results/recommendations at any scheduled project workshop(s).” For costing purposes, please indicate the number of workshops that should be assumed.
Answer 22: On Page 11 under Task 1 Project Management, the RFP states “For costing purposes, bidders should assume attendance at two 1-day meetings during the project in a major city in the Southeast with up to two contractor staff attending each meeting.” Bidders should state their assumptions to support their projected costs for these potential meetings.
Question 23: 12/9/08 – On the SESARM web sites, the link to “MACTEC 2002 point source inventory report” is actually a link to the 2002 area source report. Can the 2002 point source inventory report be provided?
Answer 23: The link has been corrected.
Question 24: 12/9/08 – Both the Statement of Work (Page 6) and the Task Description Specifics Task 2, EGU Base Year EI (Page 12) specify "at least one base year inventory", while the Deliverables (p. 9) specify a "base year inventory." For some sectors, the approach and level of effort will differ, depending upon which base year is used. Should these different base years be described and costs estimated separately or should we assume one of these two base years for our approach and cost estimates? If so, which one?
Answer 24: Bidders are asked to provide their assumptions for costs to provide a 2005 and a 2008 base year inventory. For cost estimation purposes, bidders should assume that they will be initiating their work with state inventory data rather than developing inventories for the states. The contractor will likely be asked to begin work in the spring of 2009 to assemble a 2005 inventory starting with states’ existing 2005 inventory data. States will not develop inventory data for 2008 until 2010. The level of effort by a contractor to assemble a 2005 inventory will be less than for a 2008 inventory because inventory improvement methods for several sectors (e.g. rail, area sources, and agricultural ammonia) would be applied to the 2008 inventory but not the 2005 inventory. Inventory improvement methods have not been defined in total so it is difficult to give precise direction for estimating costs for a 2008 inventory. Bidders can define assumptions used to estimate costs for the 2008 inventory development, excluding or itemizing any special inventory tasks.
Question 25: 12/9/08 – To provide clarification needed to properly estimate the level of effort for the area source inventory development work, can SESARM provide a working assumption as to the number of area source categories/states/local areas for which new base year emission inventories will be developed under this contract?
Answer 25: Since states have not completed their evaluation of area source methods, it is not possible to provide the exact number or perhaps even a reliable estimate of the number of area source categories that will be targeted for additional effort. The ERTAC area source work group is considering 60 different subcategories, but the number of subcategories requiring changes to existing methods remains to be determined. For costing purposes, bidders can assume that they will be starting with inventory data provided by ten states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, and up to 17 local air pollution control programs in major metropolitan areas within Alabama (2), Florida (7), Kentucky (1), North Carolina (3), and Tennessee (4). Bidders should provide assumptions used as basis for costs.
Question 26: 12/9/08 – Can a break-down be provided by emission source (area, non-EGU point, EGU point, on-road, non-road) of the budget for production of the 2002 SESARM inventory?
Answer 26: The 2002 inventory budget is less relevant because the SESARM budget for the next base year and projection year inventories is less than was available for the previous inventories. Proportionally, area and point source inventory development was roughly 60% of the 2002 inventory budget with mobile source inventories consuming the remainder of that budget.
Question 27: 12/9/08 – The RFP indicates that EPA inventory data for EGU point, non-EGU point, and area sources may need to be obtained. Can we assume this inventory data has undergone quality assurance checks?
Answer 27: No. Bidders should not assume that inventory data has already been quality-assured. After completion of the contract including the Scope of Work for the project, the contractor will be required to finalize a Quality Assurance Project Plan for submittal to EPA for approval. The project will not be allowed to move forward until the QAPP has been approved and all associated SESARM grant conditions have been fully met. Integral to the QAPP will be development of procedures to assure the quality of data that is being produced by the contractor and to assess the quality of data provided by other sources.
Question 28: 12/18/08 – How should labor rates be presented? Should overhead charges be included in hourly rate? How should other direct costs be reported that are not associated with travel or labor?
Answer 28: A revised cost spreadsheet has been developed to clarify expectations. For each sub-task identified in a row in the spreadsheet, please itemize the staff members that are anticipated to contribute to the project, estimated hours per individual, and each respective hourly rate (salary plus benefits). In separate columns, please provide all company overhead and fees applied to the hourly rate, travel, and other direct costs. More than one column is acceptable to explain overhead and fees. Clarify if overhead or fees are charged on travel and other direct costs. Then provide total budget for each sub-task as the sum of all direct and indirect labor charges, travel, and other direct charges. Click here for a copy of the updated cost spreadsheet template.
Question 29: 12/22/08 – Explain what is needed in the cost spreadsheet for collecting mobile model inputs, given the reference on Page 18 to reviewing findings of Kansas City, Detroit, and New York studies. Who is the contractor for the project?
Answer 29: The cost estimate for developing mobile model inputs in the base year may be applied just to obtaining mobile model inputs from the state and local agencies in the southeast. If in the future there is a need for enhanced mobile emissions profiles, more detailed descriptions will be provided and more detailed and precise cost figures will be requested. The project discussed in the RFP is managed by LADCO and NREL. ENVIRON is the contractor working with Desert Research Institute to evaluate vehicle exhaust contributions to ambient data collected during the Kansas City study. The contractors are to recommend to LADCO new emissions profiles for Detroit and New York based on ambient data collected in those cities. There are no reports for this current project. Products are expected in 2009. At a point in the future, the contractor selected pursuant to this RFP will review the profiles resulting from the LADCO-NREL study and make recommendations whether those profiles or standard EPA profiles should be used for the Southeast. The Southeast was not considered for the LADCO-NREL study because biogenic emissions in the southeast make it more difficult to interpret contributions from mobile emissions to ambient data. This topic was mentioned in the RFP as an example of assistance that may be requested in the future as inventory improvements are sought. SESARM does not expect bidders to research this topic to any major degree nor to include efforts addressing the topic in their upcoming bid.
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